Carter Pearson: Hey JD,
With a readership of 12 and only 3 typos, I think we can say the first edition of The Mid Range was a rousing success.
Let’s get back into it – we’ve only got a few more games of watching James Harden and Chris Paul shoot 3s and fall down. Let’s cherish these moments of #sportsball greatness.
I think, regardless of how these series turns out, a few trends stand out.
The Make/Miss Tier – The NBA is a make/miss league. It’s pretty obvious that the team that makes more baskets will win the game.
But, there’s nuance to that. Stars will usually eat regardless. Most games come down to whether secondary guys are making shots. Each team has a bellwether guy who determines the outcome more than the stars (presuming regular performance, and not 50-point triple doubles or whatever the hell Harden and Durant are up to at the moment).
Think Khris Middleton, Eric Gordon, Al Horford, or Jamal Murray. This is the Make/Miss Tier. Obviously if Giannis, Harden, Kyrie or Jokic are off, those teams lose. But, if the #2 guys play well, a win is almost a lock.
(Disclaimer: this likely doesn’t hold against the Warriors because they have two #1s and you don’t.)
This leads to my second trend…
The Age of High Variance – Before 2018, Daryl Morey told Zach Lowe that he made the Chris Paul trade to increase variance, or the spread of possible outcomes, in games against the Warriors. This is how Houston almost beat the Dubs last year, and also how they lost game 7 by missing 27 straight 3s.
(Side note: I think that is way more embarrassing than coughing up a 3-1 lead to LeBron, but that’s an argument for another day.)
Now that most teams are taking over 40% of their shots from deep, each game is becoming more of a crapshoot. Does Khris Middleton go 7-10 or 3-10 on the same diet of shots? Multiply that by every player on the court, and you have the makings of either a 25-point win or a 25-point loss. This is the biggest reason for the increase in blowouts throughout these playoffs. The 3-point revolution has been incredible to watch from a stylistic perspective. But, while 5-out or spread pick and roll offenses have made the game more fun to watch, they’ve increased variance and reduced end-of-game competition. (See Giannis sitting 4th quarters this year, or Steph doing the same over the past 3-4.)
Would I rather watch the Bucks blowout the Celtics than Knicks-Heat circa 1994? Yes.
Would I like to see some rules tinkering to maybe reduce the amount of 3s and variance while retaining a spread floor? Also yes.
Q: What do you think has been the story of these playoffs thus far? And where are we going from here?
J.D. Crabtree: As long as we keep lowering that readership-to-typo ratio (RTT) we are headed in the right direction. This is a data-driven publication.
I’m also enamored with the league’s shift from pick-and-pound to shoot-and-fall over the past decade or so. Any average basketball fan is aware that the game has had a power shift to behind the seductive 3-point line. But it’s a shift that is not swinging back. My favorite anecdote from that linked article is that the year the 3-point line was introduced, 1980, only 1 (1!!!!!!) 3-pointer was made during the entire NBA Finals. 1 Carter, 1. Michael Jordan entered the league in 1984 and helped start what I consider one the greatest identity shifts in a major sport. He ushered in swagger, trash talk, physical domination, and scoring domination outside of being really tall. And 3-pointers really weren’t a part of that. Isaiah Thomas and The Bad Boys won a title and tried to score every basket two feet from the rim.
Basketball coaches and visionaries have always preached to “attack the basket”. While that phrase has always been associated with driving to the rim it is in reality a reference to putting pressure on the opposing defense. In 1998 one “attacked the basket” by driving to the rim to get to the free throw line or posterize someone. In 2019 one “attacks the basket” with a 3-point shot. With the efficiency of the 3-pointer getting closer and closer to a 2-pointer for some, the threat to score from 25 feet (and earn 1 extra point) is terrorizing perimeter defenders. And if you can draw a foul, which counts the same against a defender’s foul count, and earn one extra free throw, you fall.
That’s why the Make/Miss point you bring up is fascinating and pivotal, teams are 100% content with losing games if their secondary stars can’t hit that night. The Warriors have won with 3s for years, so everyone and their grandson is in hot pursuit to outMake the Warriors whether they are playing them or not. Because hypothetical grandsons team might play them later and need to be prepared for the shootout.
Q: I’m not sure how we can reset the boundaries at this point. Limiting 3-pointers is similar to limiting home runs, do we just tell the masses “hey we are moving things further away because people are scoring too much”?
CP: I love the analogy between 3s and home runs. I’ve never been a big baseball guy. I mean, I like to drink outside and eat smoked meats as much as the next person, but I don’t need to buy a ticket to do those things. (Oh wait, yes I do. I live in a studio apartment). But I digress.
Baseball initially embraced the long ball — chicks dig it, Sosa, Bonds, roids, etc. Homers peaked at 5,693 per season in 2000, before dropping all the way to 4,186 in 2014 as the cracked down on steroids, changed the balls and pitchers continued to throw really hard.
But, since 2014, they’ve spiked back up. This includes the record of 6,105 homers hit by all players in 2017. This has also coincided with an increase in strikeouts (from 30k to an all time record 41k since 2005). Walks have been steady (and even dropped a bit) since 2000.
In practice, this means that a game in 2019 has far less participation by 7 guys in the field than a game at any other time in baseball history.
This is a long-winded way of saying: baseball is more boring than it has ever been because it is predictable and teams mostly play the same way.
The most exciting baseball team of the last few years was the Royals — they stole bases, played good defense, were athletes and made a shitload of contact. They were fun.
Now — most baseball games are strikeouts, walks and a few 2-run homers.
The NBA runs the risk of a similar fate if they keep pushing towards parity between 3s and 2s.
Kirk Goldsberry, of the beautiful Grantland shot charts, just wrote a book called Sprawlball, where he outlines how we got here, and some solutions the league could take to fix it.
His thesis is twofold. First, the league has consistently changed the rules in favor of guard away from bigs. And second, the goal of the analytics movement shouldn’t be too only find the most efficient way for a team to play, but for the league to ensure a diverse, interesting style of play throughout the 30 teams.
I won’t get into all his ideas here, but it will be interesting to see how the league uses the data revolution to ensure styles of play remain fluid. And that opens up a ton of questions for roster construction. If you’re the Rockets, and the league institutes a 3-second rule for the corners (one of Kirk’s ideas), do you cut PJ Tucker? How would players develop in a league of shifting 3-point rules?
We’re a long way from the league being as boring as baseball. But, we’ve reached a point where Mike Scott is a more valuable playoff player than DeMarcus Cousins. That makes no sense.
Q: How would you like the league to proceed?
JD: Shout-out to the Royals. Like you said, baseball is seeing a similar revolution. Batting average is out the window, it’s all about bombing a few guys in 2-3 times a game. And pitching is edging closer and closer to a win by committee approach.
Woah, wait a second! Look at all this baseball infiltration into our basketball haven. Back to basics….
The fluidity in basketball makes this comparison interesting because of who has the majority of control between the offense and the defense. Baseball guys have to focus all their effort on opposing pitcher’s next trick. Damian Lilliard and Steph Curry can more or less decide that this possession will be a three pointer, sorry coach. In the spirit of cross-sport analogies I see the 3 point barrage affecting the game just as much as the Peyton Manning/Tom Brady shotgun spread affected the NFL. Teams want to gamble on chunks of passing yards (3s) instead of close-quarter combat with statistically minimal returns (2s) and reap the benefits of referee preferences toward the offense with a medley of interference calls (exactly what we are seeing with Harden’s approach).
So, now we are at a crossroads. The NBA is entertainment. People train and Uber to these games after dreadful days in the office to be entertained and scream obscenities at opposing backcourts. The game has turned into a true spectacle with the three point efforts our league’s stars are providing. I don’t believe we should rob the current fan base of this entertainment – the league is also seeing very nice traction compared to other sports *cough MLB and NFL cough*. Maybe we take a Darwinian approach and see how the players evolve over the next couple of years to this strategy.
Personally, I’m concerned about a Harlem Globetrotters-ish influence that the league could flirt with depending on future regimes. How many times do you think someone has floated the “4 point line” in strategy meetings? I bet a ton. And I’m bucketing the corner 3-second rule with a 4-pointer, another unnatural gimmicky rule to alter the game so someone can put their stamp on something. I think fans should celebrate that we are watching humans master the skill of throwing a round ball into slightly larger hoop from far distances. The human race was really bad at this for centuries.
Alright so Mike Scott vs DeMarcus Cousins. DeMarcus decided to join the one team who could limit his overall impact, I don’t feel bad for him turning into an offensive rebounder in his shallow attempt to chase a ring. Mike Scott is mastering his craft, mainly so he survives in this league. We see this in the ‘real world’ all the time. Fortune 500s hire world class/.001% individuals for a niche function they are trying to improve, they don’t need the individual running other departments or influencing other projects. They only need to prove their worth by providing an excellent product in their niche so that the greater plan works. That is Mike Scott. But Mike Scott needs the DeMarcus’ of the world for them to exist. And since teams don’t have the budgets for 2+ DeMarcus’, the Mike Scotts of the world just perfecting one aspect of the game with smaller price tags become extremely, yep you guessed it, valuable.
Q: So Cooks, should the average fan learn to love Mike Scott more? Or just focus all attention and fandom towards the 2-3 star players on their current roster?
Also how far is CJ McCollum rising in your book?
CP: Alright, so the Warriors just lost Game 4 to the Rockets after two of the best humans in the world at putting the ball through the slightly larger hoop missed 3s. So, maybe we aren’t fully optimal yet.
*Before I answer your question, I just want to put something in the universe. The Rockets are the worst. I cannot watch mathketball anymore, Chris Paul has always been the worst and somehow Austin Rivers is now better at shooting 3s than Klay Thompson and Steph. Shrug emoji, I guess. But, I just really hate watching them.
Warriors-Blazers is fun, Warriors-Nuggets might be a sweep, and Rockets against either of those teams is the same as Rockets against anyone. We watch Harden dribble more than anyone else has ever dribbled and PJ Tucker snarl. Okay, rant over, but the way they play feels unnatural and I hate it.*
Back to the question: the casual fan should definitely love Mike Scott more. I mean, guys 1-3 on your team will decide who wins the title, but guys 4-6 will probably determine a few of the most crucial games along the way. I feel like I’m sort of talking in circles here, because I think basketball games are random and fluky, but ultimately the best team, usually, wins the series. And the best team is, usually, the team with the most stars.
But, role players can be fun too! As long as they aren’t PJ Tucker who is garbage.
And, I guess what I’m saying is not that DeMarcus is a star and Mike Scott is not, but that because of how the game is now played, you could argue that Mike Scott is more valuable than Boogie. And that seems bad in any context. It should be obvious, because DeMarcus Cousins is way better at basketball than Mike Scott, that he is more valuable. And, this isn’t in the same way people said Jeff Green had Hall of Fame talent but “could never put it together” while Joe Ingles looks like your uncle but is actually good. Boogie is better at every facet of basketball than Mike Scott, but because he is literally 4% worse at shooting 3s, Scott has more playoff value.
On C.J. — he’s fun to watch, but I think he is about at his ceiling. If he’s your best player, I think you are the Phoenix Suns. That said, he’s an incredible shot maker, and I’m happy he’s getting a little shine with Lillard struggling. So, I’m not sure he is rising. For me, he is who I thought he was.
Since it looks like we’re going to have at least 3 series go 6 or further, I think we wrap here and come back with a Conference Finals preview in a few days, what say you, Crabs?
JD: Easy on PJ! I’ve learned to love all things Rick Barnes, and that’s one of his favorite references on the recruiting trail. Also reminder that Texas basketball used to be really fun.
I’ll save some spice for the Conference Finals preview, but Cooks, Durant’s injury just woke up all remaining teams. They smell blood, or whatever a calf injury smells like.
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